Polemic, Conspiracy, and Conformity among the Singing Men of the mid-Tudor Chapel Royal

Abstract

England between 1547 and 1559 saw kaleidoscopic religious change that was expressed particularly clearly in the work of the 35 singing men of the Chapel Royal. These lay singers and priests composed and performed music for the starkly divergent liturgical requirements of the mid-Tudor era and thereby participated directly in the projection of the images of their monarchs, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. The most skilled royal composers created iconic and often extravagant musical utterances standing as major confessional texts, even as these same artists generally left little explicit evidence of their religious alignments. Understanding this milieu provides crucial context for the lives and careers of Thomas Tallis, John Sheppard, and William Byrd. We have then the opportunity to observe a community of courtiers of the ‘middling sort’ as they combined radically crosscutting loyalties with outstanding artistry bridging the magnificence of the Henrician and Elizabethan musical worlds.

Keywords

• music
• Reformation
• Tudor court
• polyphony
• singers
• religious conscience